Schools still struggling with how to teach about slavery

‘“They made me a slave today.”

Aneka Burton still remembers the way her then 10-year-old son, Nikko, who is black, recounted his experience to his grandfather after school one day.

It was 2011. But Burton believes the classroom exercise in which Nikko’s classmates were encouraged to examine and pretend to bid on each other during a history lesson continues to affect his life, even now as an 18-year-old high school graduate.

“He tries to act like it didn’t bother him, but I really think it changed him,” the Gahanna, Ohio, mother said.

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It’s those memories that leave her shaking her head years later as reports about mock slave auctions continue to emerge, reminders that schools are still struggling with how to teach about slavery and its impacts.

There are no national standards on how to teach about slavery, although it is often recommended as a topic in curriculum at the state and local levels, according to Lawrence Paska, executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies. The guidance leaves specific lessons up to schools and teachers, who on several occasions have caused offense with attempts to bring history to life.

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